Homily: February 9, 2024, Friday of the fifth week in Ordinary time. (Finger in ear).

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 He put his finger into the man's ears and, spitting, touched his tongue; then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, "Ephphatha!" (that is, "Be opened!")

Living in the shadow of the pandemic, we can’t help but agree that this miraculous healing is probably one of the more unhygienic ones Jesus has performed.

I always wondered if he could have just performed the healing without putting his finger in the man’s ears or touching his tongue with spittle.

Jesus could have healed him the same way as he healed the centurion's soldier, remotely without even needing to see the sick man.

But here, Jesus takes extra steps. He put his fingers in his ears so that he could feel Jesus’ touch. He then put spittle on his tongue, so that he could taste Jesus. And Jesus spoke in Aramaic, "Ephphatha," so that he could see Jesus’ speaking.

We do not know exactly why Jesus did the healing this way, many scholars have proposed some explanations, but to me, it is not important to know why, He surely has His reasons. Just as He has different ways of answering each person’s prayers. And truly, if we read carefully, Jesus did not perform the miracles all in the same way. Each event was done differently.

What is important is that He had compassion for everyone, and He healed, He exorcised, He restored. He knew how each person was suffering in their diseases and conditions.

In my home village, we had a neighbor who became deaf when she was 2 years old due to an illness. So, she knew only a few words like mom, dad, and the names of her siblings. 

When she lost her hearing, she lost her ability to speak as well. Despite her challenges, she performed well at school and even finished college with a very good score.

In Jesus' time, being deaf was very different. Such conditions were not understood and were considered a curse, thus people were not even given a chance to live normally. Jesus understood the suffering. He wants to restore the man’s dignity as a human person.

In truth, Jesus looks at everyone of us and He wants to restore us to the glory with which we were created for. He reaches out to us every moment and wants to put His finger in our ears to help us hear the truth. He wants to let us taste His goodness and be one with Him. He wants us to see God’s holy words spoken into our beings to save our souls.

In today’s first reading, we see the consequences of King Solomon for not listening to God’s words. He thus fell from his glory. We all have fallen short of our glory because we disobeyed God.

Jesus wants to heal us and restore us. Will you let His holy fingers open your ears and His sacred spittle empower your tongue?


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Homily: April 23, 2024, Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Easter (Exciting news).

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Those who had been scattered by the persecution that arose because of Stephen went as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch. Antioch is approximately 300 miles from Jerusalem. So it seems that the good news of Christ had spread out far and wide very fast since the death of Stephen. Look at these early converted believers, how excited they are to receive and share the good news. When was the last time you were super excited about something and had to share it with everyone you know? A few days ago, a young friend of mine got enlisted into the US military, he called eagerly to tell me, "Father, I am a soldier." And in a few hours, he came to my office and told me again the same news. He was so excited, it was the best news he had been waiting for, and he went around telling all his friends about it within that morning. Little children are not good at containing their excitement. Often when my young nephews and nieces got new toys, they would immediately FaceTime with me to show
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Homily: April 6, 2024, Saturday in the octave of Easter (First five saturday devotion.)

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Thank you all for continuing to come for Saturday morning Mass. When I was little, my family used to attend Saturday morning Mass together and will always end with the Novena to Our Lady of Perpetual Help. To me, that is a beautiful devotion for the whole family. I have wanted to start Saturday morning Mass when I first came to SAC but didn’t know if it will catch on with the parishioners. Last year, I attended an evening talk about Our Lady of Fatima at St. Augustine Parish and came to know about the First Five Saturday devotion, and I was again motivated. Finally, today being the first Saturday of the month, we can begin. Let me share a bit more about this devotion. Sr. Lucia was one of the three shepherd children visionaries to whom our Blessed Mother appeared for six months in 1917 in Fatima. Later when Lucia grew up and joined the convent in Spain, our Blessed Mother appeared to her again on December 10, 1925, with this message, “Behold, my daughter, my Heart encircled with thorns
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Homily: March 24, 2022, Thursday of the Third Week of Lent

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 “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me, scatters.” Jesus’ message is so clear. We cannot follow Jesus partially. If we are not following him whole heartedly, we are not his followers. Today is the 20th day of Lent, not counting Sundays. We are halfway through. Do you remember what you decided you will do specially for these 40 days of Lent? Are you keeping up to it? While we are trying hard to grow stronger spiritually, the devils are working harder to keep us down. I wonder who is in the lead at this halfway mark? In my childhood years, only rich children in my village could afford to own bikes. When I was in the 5th grade, my older brother and I decided to collect wild nutmeg flowers from the nearby forest to sell, so that we can afford to buy a bike.  We would wake up very early in the morning and run to the forest to search and collect as many as possible. Many children from other villages were doing the same so whoever got there first would get
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Homily, March 22, 2022, Tuesday of the Third Week of Lent.

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 “Do not let us be put to shame, but deal with us in your kindness and great mercy.” This is the prayer by prophet Azaria, pleading to God on behalf of the people. How do you discipline your children when they do something wrong? In India, caning is the norm. My parents did the same. Whenever we did something wrong, my mommy would grab the cane to give us a good beating. Of course, we knew what was coming and would run away fast. Mommy would then chase us around the house, trying to get us. Where could we go? The best trick was to run to grandpa. If we reached him before mommy got us, we will be safe! He would always protect us and plead on our behalf, “don’t cane them, just forgive this time”. How many times have we been saved by grandpa? I don’t know, maybe more than seventy-seven times. Peter asks in the Gospel, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him?” He is referring to offences between two persons. If seventy-seven times is how often we should forgive o
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Homily: March 25, 2024, Monday of the Holy week (Servant songs).

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“A bruised reed he shall not break, and a smoldering wick he shall not quench, until he establishes justice on the earth; the coastlands will wait for his teaching.” There are four passages in the book of the prophet Isaiah known as ‘Servant Songs’, or ‘Songs of the Suffering Servant’.  Today’s first reading is taken from the first song. The next two days we will read from another two songs. These are prophecies about Jesus, written 700 years before His birth, and they reveal the mission and disposition of the Messiah. This first song describes the most important disposition of Jesus and His very purpose on earth. A bruised weed is a stalk of grain which is crushed and broken in such a way that it will never produce any grain again. It is a dying stalk. This refers to the poor and oppressed, so miserable is their life such that they can never on their own, rise above their poverty and neediness. Their only hope is having someone to lift them out of their situation. A smoldering wick mi
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Homily March 20, 2022, Third Sunday of Lent Year A Readings (For RCIA)

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  Readings: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/032022-YearA.cfm “Come see a man who told me everything I have done. Could he possibly be the Christ?” We all love a good story, especially true stories that start with challenges, but end good. My grandfather used to tell us many stories about his life. My siblings and I never get bored hearing about his adventures with king cobras and tigers.  He would always end by praising God for leading him to safety in all his encounters. I would often imagine myself in those same exciting situations. Today’s Gospel is about a beautiful story of a woman, with a dark past, living with rejection in her life, who heard her life story retold by a holy man she met, in an unlikely situation. Nobody draws water at noon time, no Jew talks to a Samaritan.  But that encounter changed her life totally. Her darkness was dispersed into bursts of joy and hope. ‘Jesus and the Samaritan woman’ is a story about God breaking barriers – social, physical and spirit
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Homily: September 25, 2022, Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time.

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From the gospel, “He raised his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side”. The poor man who went to heaven in this parable had a name: Lazarus. The rich man who went to hell had no name. Our name is our identity. Our relationship to God is our identity. And we are all children of God, He calls each of us by name, both on earth and in heaven. In another gospel passage Jesus told his disciples, “Rejoice because your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:20). The rich man may have enjoyed a life of comfort and luxury on earth, but he did not have a relationship with God. Thus in Jesus’ story, he had no name. Now, how did Lazarus get to heaven? Was it because of his poverty. No. How did the rich man end up in hell? Was it because of his wealth? Of course, not. What we have or have not, is not the deciding factor of our destiny after this life.  Our eternity depends on how we use what we have been given. We do not know if the rich man committed any mortal sins in his life, but w
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Homily: August 20, 2022, Saturday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time

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“The angel led me to the gate which faces the east, and there I saw the glory of the God of Israel coming from the east”.  These words in the first reading remind of the Orthodox and Oriental Churches. When they construct their churches, they would set their church altars to face the east, so that, when the priests celebrate Mass, they will be looking towards that direction. In India, especially in Kerala where I came from, all our church altars face the east. The concept is based on the expectation that Christ would come again, arriving from the east, and the priest is leading the community to the heavenly Jerusalem.  Interestingly, the Hindu temples also face eastwards.  And do you know, the houses in my village are built with the kitchens facing the east also. Why? It has nothing related to the coming of Christ. It has to do with the sunrise. The mothers of the households start cooking when they wake up, and the kitchens are open concept, so the rising sun will provide the much need
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Homily: February 27, 2022, Eight Sunday in the Ordinary Time

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For readings: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/022722.cfm There were two brothers who lived debauched lives engaging in terrible deeds. They were notorious yet not at all ashamed. Then one brother died. The surviving brother asked the local pastor to preach at his brother’s funeral. The pastor, aware of the brothers’ background, was reluctant to do it. The brother then promised to donate a big sum of money to the church and begged the pastor to preach with a special request. “Father, in your homily, you just have to say that my brother was a saint.” The pastor thought about it and agreed. The funeral day came. The pastor began his homily, “The man laid in the casket was a rotter; he led a horrible and debauched life. He was truly rotten to the bone. But compared to his brother, he was a saint.” Saintly life or shoddy living – Would the priest at our own funeral have to be paid to tell a lie? It all depends on what kind of fruit we produce from the way we live. Usually, we cannot
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Homily: November 7, 2023, Tuesday of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time (Invitation).

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“Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in here the poor and the crippled, the blind and the lame." Today’s gospel story really struck me deep. The poor, the crippled, the blind, the lame: who are they? At the time of Jesus, these were the people who were despised, considered imperfect and looked upon by society as people abandoned by God, cursed and thus without the blessing of wealth nor health. And because of their imperfections, being rejected by society, they can't do many things on their own, opportunities are blocked, doors are closed to them. They only have one hope - God. They have no one else to depend on. Conversely, those who were better off, those blessed with wealth and health, who were the first guests invited to the grand dinner, were so busy with their own affairs, and engrossed in their own world that they had little or no regard for the invitation.  They were independent, they did not think they needed to deepen their relationship w
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